HYDERABAD: Experts underscored the need for a joint memorandum of understanding (MoU) between agricultural institutions and local and Chinese private sector for growth of certified seeds and new seed commodities.

They called for increasing research budget for the development of agriculture to meet demand for pure seeds and proposed that experimental fields be set up on farmers’ land.

They were speaking at the first farmers field day organised by the Seed Production and Development Centre at the Sindh Agriculture University, Tandojam in collaboration with Higher Education Commission (HEC), Agriculture Research Sindh and UBL on Sunday.

SAU vice chancellor Dr Fateh Marri said that it was only agriculture sector that helped tackle food and economic crisis in 1947, 1971 war and today’s economic problems.

He said that agriculture was the only sector that helped deal with food and economic crisis although the country lagged far behind developing countries in terms of per acre productivity while there was need to increase budget for agricultural research by 20 pc to get positive yield results.